What began as a simple journey has turned into so much more...

These orcs heard there was some good puppy-kicking action to be had...

In our first ever gathering (the “shake-down cruise”, as it were), we pulled a minor fast-forward (a la Record of Lodoss War) to a time when the party already knew each other and were travelling down a path near the woods. They heard a cry, and looked up to see a number of orcs kicking a poor, helpless puppy by a broken-down hut at a crossroads. Having none of that, the party engaged the orcs in combat, slaying them mightily.

When the fight ended, Nulath [Casey] claimed the puppy and named him (“Frodo”) as Akara [Valarie] healed him. Meanwhile, [Mike] and Praxis [Lisa] did some Arcana-related reconnoitering. They realized that this was a fey puppy, called a “Cooshee”, and that they were near an area where the wall between the Material world and the Feywild might be weak (a so-called “fey crossing”). The session ended with Karath [Mike] saying “There’s no way its owner could be anywhere nearby…” and Praxis daring him to say that again as the camera focused on Karath’s quizzical face, the screen going dark as he opened his mouth to speak.

You'll never get away with this...

Our first session from a chronological point of view, this game featured the party meeting up in a tavern, the Heaping Portion, in Altair. Actually, it featured the party getting press-ganged into helping with wedding setup by the halfling tavernmistress Wendy Fullbelly, as the two older Steelshovel brothers, Morn & Dorn, had totally fallen-through with the workers from their parents’ old mine. After a flurry of preparation and keeping other inn-patrons from realizing that their normal dinners were coming slowly, dawn arrived, and the guests started showing up.

Mingling with a great many NPCs, many of whose names will be forgotten if you don’t read these pages regularly, the party was interrupted when the youngest Steelshovel brother, Axeblood, bloodied and near death, came hobbling in to say that strange figures had summoned darkness and beat him up while stealing the Eladrin bride, Christania, and her maid of honor, the half-drow Kyone. At the same time, strange glowing crystals which had been providing ambient light magically activated, spewing some Underdark poison out at everyone in the Wedding area. The party, who was outside of the wedding area on the road listening to Axeblood, was not hit with the debilitating poison. It appeared that some of the heartier party-goers, including an old dragonborn man, were less effected, so they said they’d tend to the wounded while the PCs raced off after the kidnappers.

At the old Steelshovel mine, where the kidnappers were holed-up, the party overheard the steelshovel brothers discussing plans from the Mayor, but confused that they had been double-crossed. They also saw the slain bodies of many of the workers that were supposed to have been helping with the wedding setup. The double-crosser was a Drow demonologist (and his soldiers), who summoned one of Llolth’s handmaiden demons (a yochlol) to trade the half-breed Kyone for a rare component to complete the ritual he was doing on Christania. The handmaiden looked similar to a drow, but in a disturbingly not-right way that said she was wearing flesh that was not her true form. The demon took Kyone away in a cloud of spiders after killing the Steelshovel brothers and putting strange spider creatures on their faces. A fight broke out, with the PCs slaying the Drow (and their newly undead dwarf allies) and disrupting the ritual just in time. On the demonologist’s body, however, they found a note in the Mayor’s handwriting about the Featherin Brewery.

Racing to the brewery, the party found fire elementals and a fire archon, who had clearly been summoned to burn down the wooden, filled-with-flammable-alcohol complex. A second fight ensued, with the party taking heavy fire damage but doing enough damage to the Fire Archon to send it packing back to the elemental realm whence it came. A study of the summoning circle used to call the elementals revealed that it had been cast by someone with demonic blood… like perhaps a tiefling.

Returning to the wedding, Art Zoe [Jenn] called out her uncle, the mayor, as a villain. As her evidence was all circumstantial, though, he appeared to be able to hide behind the law… until the old dragonborn man threw off his hood and revealed himself as (OMG) KINGTITUSIMPERIUS, the supreme Executive Authority in Ionia. He judged and executed the Mayor as a traitor to the nation, consuming him in radiant dragonbreath. The rest of the wedding went off with the appropriate number of hitches (one, Gilraith & Christania to each other), and the adventuring party was celebrated as heroes.

Make my tree sing again...

Fresh off their victorious rescue of the bride from the clutches of the Drow, followed by their victorious rescue of the Featherin brewery from sentient fires summoned by the (now ex) Mayor, the party went back to briefly chat with the wedding party before kitting-up and heading out to find Kyone Velve, the half-drow Maid of Honor who is likely being tortured underground by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen.

The heavily beaten Axeblood Steelshovel, after some encouraging words from Nikolai [Micah], gave the group the key to his family’s home, and told them about his father’s map room, which he believed would show them the locations of any failed mining attempts that might lead deep enough to get the party where they were going. Armed with this knowledge and a tracking charm given to them by the King, the party was off.

On the way there, the party passed a crossroads, where Encounter 0 happened.

The Steelshovel household proved rather underwhelming, full of mold and poverty, though Karath [Mike] was able to find a few new rituals, as it turned out the patriarch of the Steelshovel family had attempted to dabble (poorly) in wizardry before his death.

After an extended rest (wherein nobody risked sleeping on the bug-infested beds), the party headed off to explore the 3 likeliest sites for passages to the Underdark. While tripping and slipping on some rocks along the way, the party discovered The Dark Plummet, a strange closet teleportation trap (which was a triumph. I’m making a note here: HUGESUCCESS. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction).

Next they came across The Deep Spire, a chamber with a large differently-colored stone in the middle of it. After speaking with the confused ghost of an ancient dryad (played by Niki), they concluded that this strange spire was a petrified version of a primordial World Tree, a relic from a time before the Dawn War, before the Elves even split, when the lines between the Prime Material Plane and the Feywild had yet to be drawn. After listening to the dryad’s pleas for help restoring her tree (which many in the party were tactfully not hopeful about accomplishing), the party took a sliver of the petrified tree with them (I think Mike took possession of it) and agreed to take on the major quest RESTORETHEWORLDTREE. Good luck with that.

Finally, the party came upon the third site, The Chamber of Light, which was a super-reflective chamber at the top of a wide, deep shaft that magnified any light source (including sunlight), possibly for illumination, possibly as a warning system for those below, or possibly to use sunlight to dissuade those below from coming up. In any case, the noise they made and the arcane magics they used were sensed by a large construct below, a sort of clockwork spider thing that looked like the brainchild of several overly-ambition gnomes trying to build something they could market to dwarves. The construct turned around, creating a somewhat rickety platform (which required repairs along the way) which somewhat safely took the PCs down the large central shaft. Some deathjump spiders decided to join the party, though their lack of invitation was quickly noted and dealt with. Micah also got to try out the new Skald build for his bard, Nikolai Pyotrovich, which seemed to work well for him and the party.

As the game ended, the construct appeared to be detecting some sort of problem, which was unfortunately made obvious to all when the chamber widened, and the construct (and party) were left in mid-air, beginning a much more rapid descent into the darkness. Hmm… makes me want to have a Balrog descend with you… but that’s probably not level-appropriate.

What's your safe word? Correl-cough-phlegm

When we last left our heroes, they were plummeting to their certain doom atop a gnomishly-created mechanical spider-mining… thing. As the session began, the party engaged in the skill challenge “Don’t Plummet to Your Grisly Death”, in which they tried to climb down to the bottom of the unit, open a blocked panel, activate the Gravity Neutralization System (GNS), and then climb back up to (relative) safety. Things went reasonably well (despite the party not having all of the sold-separately GnomeTech additional recommended pieces of equipment), and the GNS was activated before the Emergency Gravitational Avoidance Device (EGAD) had to come into play (which is very good, believe me).

The spider/construct/miner/thing semi-crashed into a huge underground lake, though fortunately close enough to shore that the party was able to swim away from the depths. Avoiding the docks of some kind of village, the party came up on an unused area, where they met Oogla, the ghost of a Kuo-Toa servant of Dagon, The Deep One (a lord of one of the layers of the Abyss). The ghost wanted the party to slaughter the goblins who had taken up residence in his town and defiled the temple of Dagon into a site that venerated the Spider Queen, Lolth. While helping the forces of an Abyssal Lord seemed like not so great of a plan, Nikolai [Micah] was able to convince the ghost that they’d try, and the ghost responded by “blessing” Nikolai’s shield into becoming a magic item: Floating Shield. The fact that it seemed to have the occasional rune praising Dagon flitting around it didn’t seem to bother Nikolai much, so I’m sure that’ll never come up in any way that might harm the party.

Speaking of the party, they eventually followed a young goblin boy back to his father’s home, which was also a sort of trading post. Here some of them spoke with Splug Splugman, who appeared to (along with his son, Splug Splugman Jr) be faking his allegiance to Lolth (with painted-on facial web tattoos). While they didn’t trust Splug, at least they knew that they could hold his lie over his head long enough to buy them a short rest. Meanwhile, outside Praxis [Lisa] and Akara [Valarie] were also resting in the shadows while trying to determine what was “up” with this town (which, incidentally, is called “Web Drink”). They noticed many spiders, strange webs that appeared to be transmitting magically with one another, and a complete lack of outer defenses in the town.

Eventually the party realized that the Handmaiden of Lolth, whom they learned was called Yaxavanda, the Widow Maker, was likely strong enough to protect the village on her own, and so the goblins didn’t really need any other extensive defenses. They realized that Yaxavanda probably already knew they were there, and resolved to seek her out directly (also motivated by the fact that their Kyone-tracking necklace was occasionally pulsing with red light).

Yaxavanda’s lair, which used to be a temple to Dagon, was a disturbingly intricate combination of constantly rewoven spiderweb tableaus and huge spiders, with the occasional goblin paying tribute with whatever meager scraps he could find. It became clear to the players that this was not so much a 2-way relationship between the goblins and Lolth, but more a group of goblins devoted to Lolth whom Yaxavanda used for her own ends, since the Spider Queen would never care about goblins. This was clearly evident in the village’s chief priest, who was a spider shaman male who could never actually hope to have any true connection to the Spider Queen.

After a non-negotiation, Yaxavanda gave the somewhat-changed Kyone back to the party, so long as they agreed to go stop some kobolds from delivering an important shipment to the mind flayers, and possibly return the shipment to her. Karath [Mike] made it clear that he was no fan of the mind flayers (who had formerly enslaved his people), but Praxis [Lisa] managed to get the party out without actually agreeing to any contracts with the demonic handmaiden of the spider goddess of chaos.

The half-drow Kyone, it turned out, had been infused with “something” from the Spider Queen. While she had enough of Lolth’s influence to be able to lead the party to the kobolds (which was good), she also could not speak the name of Corellon without choking on a spider that would crawl out of her mouth (which was bad, especially given that she had been training for the priesthood of Corellon). Also, once the fight with the kobolds began, it became clear that Kyone was not always in control of her body, which often exhibited Lolthish powers that were not always helpful to the party (or Kyone, for that matter). Nevertheless, the party defeated the kobolds in the middle of the water-and-mushroom-rich “Hunting Grounds”, and claimed the kobolds’ cargo as a prize: 4 purple dragon eggs.

While taking a short rest and investigating the nearby larger cave, they found the corpse of a female purple dragon, which appeared to have been killed by acid, then had eggs cut out of it. While Akara [Valarie] mused on the specifics of dragon mating habits, she remembered that it takes two to tango, even in draconic, and that there was likely a mate somewhere.

With a psionic scream that the party heard in their heads, the male purple dragon returned. With the party split across a large map, the dragon prepared to attack.

The next game will begin with the rolling of initiative.

Next episode is either Monday, December 12 or Tuesday, December 13 (details to be figured out later). But one way or the other, be prepared for Episode 4: “Dagon? No…DRAGON.”

XP: Skill challenge + kobold fight + roleplaying in Web Drink = 200 XP eachTreasure:
1 Floating Shield(Nicolai) NOTE: It appears there is more to this shield than meets the eye. Also, it functions better than the average floating shield…

What do you call yourselves?

Our heroes, fresh off a fight with kobolds in the Hunting Grounds, faced off against a young male purple dragon, Zaxon. During the fight, a group of observers on a high cliff were brought into the combat, and Kyone showed further signs of the influence of Yaxavanda, one of the Spider Queen’s handmaidens. Throughout the melee, it became clear that there were several forces vying for control of the dragon, including the observers, distant mind flayers, Nicolai/Micah, and Zaxon himself. In the end, the observers were observed to be allies of a sort, Kyone was subdued, and the dragon was slain.

As the party quickly looted the dragons’ lair, the observers revealed themselves to be Cormyrean War Wizards, from the Interdraconic Thaumaturgy (IT) department. One of them, Roy, is a former student from Karath/Mike‘s school, the Arch Magirium. The other, Moss Treeman, is a wilden who knows lots about mushrooms and has actual mossy hair. Returning to the IT crowd’s giant mushroom home, the party had a long conversation/debate when they were asked what they called themselves.

Their eventual decision: the New Altairian Heroes (NAH).

The IT crowd shared some info with the party:
- Web Drink has only been a goblin settlement for about 10 years
- Yaxavanda has only been in the village for about 7 years
- Teleportation magic is very unstable in the Underdark
- There is a dwarven “settlement” about a day’s journey away where a functioning teleportation circle exists: Forgehome
- The dwarves of Forgehome (and the wizard, Scarwand) are a bit crazy
- As a result of a deal with Yaxavanda to avoid goblin attacks, the IT crowd had to tell a spider if they kept any guests for an extended rest.
- Theoretically they had the means to freeze Kyone in her current state (and not get any worse), but they’d need a lot of help setting up the ritual and pouring magical energy into it.

After an extended process that eventually resulted in the successful placing of Kyone in a crystal-stasis matrix, the party decided to rest. After Roy told a spider the requisite information and the spider turned to crawl off to tell Yaxavanda, the young fey pup Frodo leapt out and ate the spider.

Lunching on Drowzones and Drow-Pockets

Our heroes, freshly rested (and increased to level 2) in the mushroom home of the Interdraconic Thaumaturgy group of the Cormyrean War Wizards, awoke to find that two of their members were not well. Both Art Zoe/Jenn and Praxis/Lisa had suffered negative reactions to the combinations of mushroom spores in the area, leaving them in a somewhat zombified state (reflecting the fact that Lisa & Jenn couldn’t make it this game). IT Wizard Moss suggested that the effects might end on their own, or they might be permanent, or there might be a dwarf at Forgehome who could brew up a cure… but as long as they were in effect, the ailing characters would be able to do little more than take directions to move. Fortunately, Kerath/Mike had room on his floating disk, which went the whole adventure at its 500 lb limit carrying Art, Praxis, and the crystalline stasis matrix that held Kyone.

Heading off into the Underdark with reasonably decent directions to Forgehome, the party engaged in a montage sequence of threats embodied in a skill challenge, where acidic moss, tunnels of inconsistent gravity, poisonous gas, heavy rubble, and a warband of Quaggoths were dealt with in one fashion or another. Then they happened upon some strange slime/slug “things”, which appeared to be breaking down detritus in the caves to component nutrients. As the party tried to figure out this bit of Underdark biology, they were attacked by Shadowhunter bats and a large vine monster that seemed like it was feeding off the slime from the slug things.

Nulath/Casey went to town in this fight, landing the killing blow on each of the three non-hazard enemies… and even had a moment where she critically missed the last foe, then called upon an inner bestial rage within her to reroll (and crit) said monster. The party realized that they were being watched, though, and quickly found two accomplished minotaur travelers, Mr. Krup and Mr. Vandemaar, who were on a sort of pilgrimage/mission to gain favor with their god Baphomet. Not wanting to be rude, Nulath sat down to chat with these two, who believed the rest of the party to be her slaves or hirelings. The delicious stew Mr. Krup was cooking turned out to be made of a Drow raiding party that the pair had just slaughtered, and while some were upset by this, at least a few of the party members sampled the stew out of politeness to the (large and overly powerful) chef.

The party also learned that the two minotaurs were gaining power for their forces in the north, who planned to enslave the orcish hordes, then sweep south across the Alliance, bringing in a new age of Minotaur rule on the east coast. They were seeking an angel they’d heard tales of who had once served a dead god, but was now being expertly tortured in a den devised by Torog, the god of torture. Krup & Vandemaar said that they first wished to observe the expert torture techniques, so they could take notes, and then they planned to consume the angel in a ritual fashion to give whatever power remained of her dead god to Baphomet. The PCs weren’t 100% down with this plan, so they parted ways with the minotaurs, trying to ensure that there were no immediately violent hard feelings between them.

Next, after more wandering through the Underdark, the party passed by a cavern that was partially hidden, but which had such a strong magic signature that it almost called out to the party. Inside they found a skinless man, Bob, who was repeatedly whipping himself with a magical cat-of-nine-tails, and a sleeping naked woman who looked like a deva. When the woman woke up, she was terrified and screaming, and apparently had no memories. The longer she stayed awake, though, the more memories returned… first speech, then identity, then more. Her name was Amitiel and she had served Oghma, the god whose death began the Dawn War. Oghma was a goddess of not just Knowledge (like Ioun, who succeeded her), but of Truth and Wisdom, too. As the party spoke to Amitiel and Bob, it became clear that both were immortally tied to that cave, and if either died, they would awaken in the cave once more. Also, that long magical tunnel would destroy Amitiel if she went through it. In addition, they learned that no one who intended to kill Amitiel would be able to find the cave, as a function of the magics Torog had laid down. Bob’s whip, it turned out, would steal memories and somewhat heal after it ripped flesh. This was great for Bob, who repeatedly got to feel the “first whipping”, which is the “best” (for torture enthusiasts, anyway)… and also he said that Amitiel would usually reach a point where she remembered something so horrible that she would beg Bob to whip her in the head, stealing her memories once more.

Before this happened, as Amitiel reached full archangel power, she began to prophesy, telling Nicolai/Micah that his brother was alive, and with other dragonborn, some many miles away in the Underdark. She also touched Nulath/Casey’s head, awakening a memory she’d forgotten about a hobby she’d had working with knitting and knots from back in her military days. Then Amitiel remembered whatever it was that was so horrid (likely something related to Oghma’s death), and begged Bob to steal the memory and start the cycle over again. Though it was hardly a “good” option, the party decided to leave Amitiel & Bob, putting them on their “to do when we’re more powerful” list (along with reviving the World Tree).

The game ended as the party approached the outer walls of Forgehome, where they will hopefully find teleportation to the surface.

Shhh....!

Beginning outside the dwarven settlement of Forgehome in the Underdark, the party began by befriending the gate guard, convincing him to let them in. Praxis/Lisa and Art/Jenn thankfully came out of their mushroom stupors, and someone smartly decided to cover up the large gem with the drow inside.

Walking around Forgehome, the party met a number of dwarves in various states of sanity: an apothecary who made potions from mold, an ancient crippled weaponsmith who could do little more than critique his children’s work, a family of armorsmiths with their own family forge gods, adn a pair of old book lovers who claimed to have descended from the dwarves of the famous lost ancient dwarven city of Helmsgard. When they sought out “The Noble and Sacred Silence,” a cleric to the dwarven god Dumathoin (god of secrets under the mountain), however, they found other secrets.

In a slowly-revealed secret temple area, the party progressed and fought off the forces of Vecna, an evil god of secrecy and undeath. Some of the enemies’ powers even drained memories from those they hit. After an extended exploration/combat, the party was victorious.

After defeating the non-skeleton Vecnites, the party heard various secrets being revealed, though many may not have made a lot of sense.

After a bit of shopping, the party made their way to Scarwand and the teleportation circle. They were transported to the surface, in Cormyr, where they were met by a circle of war wizards with wands at the ready.

You should send some men to get our new catapult...

Our game began with the party standing amidst a circle of ready-to-fire Cormyrean War Wizards, who were rather upset that the party had somehow accessed their ultra-secure teleportation circle in The Hub, the main supply center for the Alliance’s war effort against the orcish hordes on The Line. But before we dealt with that, we had a flashback…

Years earlier, the young privates Nulath & Nicolai were with their Ionian unit, lead by Captain Gilraith Featherin (a half-elf warlord), reporting to The Line. Also in their unit (played by the other folks in the group) were the goliath fighter Avalanche (Mike), the Elven Ranger Hawkeye (Jenn), the Dwarven cleric Unity (Lisa), and the dragonborn sorcerer Boomer (Valarie). The unit found the rotund and sparkly dragonborn General Claw, who told them that there was a bunch of miscreant units from Borovia [home of the Church of Kord and a society that allows criminals to swear a loyalty oath, get branded, and join the military to lessen their sentences], who were being routed on the advance western front, but that they weren’t really worth the effort to save. Featherin wouldn’t hear of it, though, and the squad ran off to the rescue.

While racing across the huge battlefield, the team split up (always a good idea), taking individual control of each of the leaderless units. A massive combat ensued, with special appearances from a gnoll hunter, an Eye of Gruumsh, and catapulted scatter-shot. However, our heroes were victorious, saving every unit, claiming the high ground, and even capturing the catapult.

Their victory was so complete that the War Wizard General, Inara Ducati Du Obarskyr, presented them with medals in an end-of-A-New-Hope kind of big ceremony.

Back in the future… er… I mean, PRESENT, the former Ionian soldiers (now reservists) told the War Wizards that they were friends of Inara. After some confusion and running to check on that claim, said Inara showed up and confirmed that she did, in fact, know Nikolai & Nulath. She told them of the vision one of their seers had experienced about the forces of Vecna trying to take The Hub. The party allayed her fears, saying that they’d defeated the undead servants of Vecna back in Forgehome. Since there was no longer any secretive, imminent undead threat to the Hub, Inara took most of her War Wizards north to the Line, where reports of several new legions of attacking orcs lead Inara to fear for the security of the Line.

That night, as the party was making themselves at home on their military cots in a larger tent, they heard the guards call out into the night “Dead Man Walking”. The cry continued down the line. The party saw a line of 5 large carriages, each driven by stooped, cloaked figures. After some cautious inquiries, they met with a being called TUS (The Unknown Soldier), a revenant who couldn’t remember much of his previous life, other than that he was a soldier who had lead men, and left them behind. As penance, and absent any other direction from whatever god brought him (somewhat) back from death, TUS has been delivering dead soldiers (in what the Church of Kord calls “Shipments of Fallen Valor”). One of his bodies is that of Boomer, an old war friend of Nicolai & Nulath. The party agreed to accompany TUS as guards.

During the night, Art had a troubling dream about walking along the ocean floor. Her dream ended with the lingering memory of one word: Umbria.

After a night’s rest, in the early hours of the morning, the party got up to start preparing to leave. They saw the fishermen of the nearby coastal village Fishermen’s Wharf getting up to make their living in the distance. After a few minutes, though, it was clear that the fishermen weren’t going towards the sea… and it wasn’t a living they were looking to make. The game ended with the party facing off against an undead village and whatever force(s) had put them into that less-than-living state.

Can you give me even ONE soldier to protect these children?

Our session began with the team looking out over the field between the Hub and Fishermen’s Wharf. They saw the zombified former adults of Fishermen’s Wharf shambling towards them, commanded by three well-equipped skeleton archers who had marched across the ocean floor from the continent of Umbria. The fight was on!

After defeating the undead, the party realized that while they were all adults, some of them had items on them that indicated the potential for kids. Heading into the village, they saw further evidence of the existence of children in the town, though none were present. They found tracks of small booted humanoids and one cane-wielding heavier hoofed individual heading off to the woods. However, the realization that the necromancer who turned the village adults undead was probably looking for new recruits… in the village cemetery.

Though the a few party members were stealthy on the approach to the cemetery, they were countered by the RIDICULOUSNOISE created by the other members, which removed any potential for surprise. The necromancer, an undead elf, was clearly frustrated that many of the graves had no bodies in them, but were only marker stones with the symbol of Umberlee, the Bitch Queen of the Ocean, upon them (their people having been lost to the sea). More combat ensued.

The battle was fierce, with all sorts of weird necromantic-type powers getting thrown around, but the party dispatched the necromancer and his two skeletal soldiers. Then they returned to the village, where they met Grannie Bess, an elderly type of minotaur (also a witch) who had sensed “bad things” coming, and had gotten the 10 village children out on a “nature walk” to get them away from whatever was coming. She had saved the children, but mourned the fact that they were all now orphans, and that she would not be able to care for them all on her own.

As they spoke to Grannie Bess, horns sounded, signalling the arrival of a squad of Purple Dragon Knights and clerics of Bahamut, lead by Marcus Obarskyr, a human who is both the younger brother of the current king of Cormyr AND the likely next choice for Platinum Cardinal (the highest humanoid position) in the Church of Bahamut. After sending his paladins to bless the coastal tides (making a holy water barrier that would prevent further attacks from the ocean). However, he was in a rush to reinforce a huge battle going on up at The Line, and could not stay for more than a brief conversation.

Grannie Bess, though, had other ideas. She asked Obarskyr for 10 soldiers to help her defend the children and raise them. He could not give her that. She asked for 5 soldiers, yet he said they were needed at the front. She asked for just one soldier, and he said that even taking one of his soldiers from the fight could mean the deaths of many others. She pleaded, “You cannot give me even ONE soldier?”

And Nulath stepped up to answer the call.

The paladins raced off to battle while the party went about some heart-felt goodbyes. One of the children came running out of her home with the remnants of an old set of armor and a particularly nice longsword. She said that her grandmother had been a great warrior, and that just before her death (of illness), her grandmother had said that another warrior would come to take up her gear. Since the paladins were long gone, Praxis took the sword (and a journal of the grandmother’s adventures) to appease the girl.

The game ended with the party returning to the Hub (minus Nulath), hearing that some of the supply guys at the Hub would try to shift extra food to the kids when they could, and then heading off with the Caravan of Fallen Valor to return the bodies of soldiers to their homelands.

Swear allegiance to Pelor or die.

When we last left our heroes… they were serving as guards on a coffin caravan,carrying the bodies of dead soldiers away from The Line and back to their homes. After passing anumber of squads of soldiers heading in the other direction (towards the fighting) and some brief conversationattempts with TUS, the unknown soldier Revenant who feels it is his duty to deliver the bodies of deadsoldiers to their families, the caravan happened upon the Many Flagons, a 3-story-tall super tavern that catersto soldiers, and a known bardic “proving grounds” and site for story origination.

The busy tavern gave the characters many social interaction opportunities. After getting some drinks, they proceeded to try and listen in for rumors and seek out other topics of interest. After hearing several variations on the story of how Cardinal Obarskyr and his men saved the day just as the Line was about to fall to orcish hordes, Nicolai [Micah] found his way up to the stage area, where Copperpiece, the gnomish stage manager, put him next in the line-up to compensate for the last Ionian to perform, who was horrible (see also William Hung).

Nicolai gave a rousing tale of the exploits of the New Altairan Heroes (edited slightly to avoid mentioning any compromising/unresolved issues, like the gem-encrusted, Lloth-infected drow they’ve got in their caravan… though not at all trying to hide the name of the Yochol Yaxavanda), which got the whole crowd cheering and out of their seats. It is likely that their tale will be carried to many nations as a result of this performance.

After Nicolai, another dragonborn bard, named Scarmagdalon, got up with his guitar to sing a song about Detham’s Legion, whom Nicolai had been asking about. Turns out Detham’s Legion is an Arkhosian revival army dedicated to killing the foes of dragonborn and bringing back the Arkhosian Empire. Unfortunately, the song had a very anti-tiefling sentiment to it, so most of the tieflings in the hall found other places to be. As Scarmagdalon & Nicolai were the two greatest hits of the night, they were called back up onstage for an encore. They did a performance of “Baba Yaga’s Dancing Hut”, which has a pretty well-known tune, but the dancing and spinning often referred to in the song made many patrons have to “take a break” after the performance was done.

Random rumors thrown around at the bar included a tale that somewhere in Coventry, a team of archaeologists had just uncovered what might be the ruins of a large city from ancient Cappodocia, though teams of historians were still preparing to go in.

Meanwhile, in one of the drinking rooms (where music from the stage was magically piped-in as background noise), Kerath [Mike] had found a warforged Kislever soldier, named Mecha Unit Delta (MUD), and was discussing the nature of warforgedness with him (after distracting the dwarven soldiers who were sitting with him). Across the room sat several soldiers from Dambrath, along with their commander, a drow with glowing sun eyes (Ssussun Beluth, an Avenger of Pelor). And, back in a corner near the dwarven table, sat two Tieflings: Scout [Johny] and his brother, who wore Ionian military garb (but no armor). The two argued about whether the brother should be rushing off to join the army, when he was a skilled baker who had no combat experience. The brother wanted to prove to the folks back home that tieflings could be heroes.

Several things happened at once in the moments that followed. Kerath, hearing that MUD was familiar with over 100 languages, showed him the Vecnal book he’d taken off the necromancer in Fishermen’s Wharf. MUD went still, and the light disappeared from his eyes as he looked at the book. The Dambrathan soldiers & Kislever Dwarves started hurling insults, and one Kislever hurled a poorly-aimed flagon, which smacked Scout’s brother in the head, knocking him off-balance. Scout’s brother fell backwards in his chair, landing on the blade of one of the dwarves’ axes, which had been put on the ground to be out of the way. As he died, the dwarves cried out that the Drow had ordered his slaves to start murdering… and the bar fight was on.

The fight featured 4 (or maybe 5) forces… the Dambrathans and their drow commander, the Kislever dwarves, the drunken brawlers who just wanted to fight, and the party (including Scout). In addition, 2 strange spectres appeared, though they didn’t really fight much, and only Praxis [Lisa] & Akara [Valarie] could see them. Art spent the fight outside, still dealing with the severe anti-tiefling racism she’d witnessed inside. The combat ended with a few dead dwarves, Scout’s dead brother, and the Dambrathans being asked to leave. The spectres disappeared, leaving the mystery of their existence to be pondered by Praxis & Akara.

In the end, the party wound up looking like the good guys in this fight. Many of the patrons were happy to talk to them after that (and happy to assume that the evil Drow had started everything), so the party received a number of rumors about stuff going on in the region (including more exact info about exactly where in Coventry – the district of Eridu – the Cappodocian dig was occurring). Scout joined the group, as his brother’s body was added to those soldiers that were on their way to their final resting place. Kerath took charge of the inanimate MUD, setting him in a seated position on one of their carts. The party decided to head down the road a ways to make camp, rather than stay in the inn where so much trouble had happened.

Experience: Everyone got 200 for the night (not enough to push them to level 3, but they’re pretty close).Treasure:MUD has a pouch with 600 GP in it, but the party has not yet decided to take that. Scout managed to abscond with 50 GP from his thieving efforts earlier in the bar.

Next Game: Set for Thursday, March 1. It will begin as the PCs make camp on the side of the dark road. Be prepared for episode 10: “If you go out in the woods tonight…”